Love is Hell on the hi-fi...

So I am having a cooking night. I am currently working on two projects: braised ox tail in a crockpot and braised duck part deux in the oven. The duck was a failed a project from the other night. I braised it stove-top (which isnt braising) and made stock with the bits. The duck got tasty but not tender and so I have put the other half of it in a deep cast iron skillet with a lid with the remainder of the stock. The original braising business was made with almost a whole jar of grey poupon country style stone ground mustard, malbec, mushroom, roasted carrots/parsnips/celery, and some spices. Thus, adding the extra stock and cooking it in the oven will hopefully a) loosen the connective tissue and achieve and actual braise and mix the stock juices and up the awesome factor. The ox tail was browned in the put in a crock pot. I used the juices in the browning pan to cook rudely chopped onion, garlic, shallot, and portabello mushrooms. Once this was sauted to my satifaction it was added to crockpot. The remainder of that pan was deglaced with sherry. This was then added to the crock pot. The pan then had some water boiled in it to loosen up whatever was left. This was added to the crock pot.
Now we wait.
I am prone to dedicated my cooking and this is no exception. This was a hard thing to decide. I decided to dedicate the duck to C because of the nature of the process. The ox goes out to K (and I am not even sure if he reads this blog but that is beside the point, I send the thought into the void regardless).
I am tired these days. My jobs drags me down something terrible. I got no bonus because I am the new guy and there was no way in hell I could get friday off (which it turns out is a work day) nor could I get the day before and after new years off because I am the new guy. This brings me back to a point from a previous post: "the fetishization of the mental health" by philosophers. I admit that psychological jargon does lend itself well to some fascinating philosophy but at the end of the day the use of a lot pyschological terms really does rob the actuality of the situation of some of its reality. It domesticatees it. It glosses it over. Theory has always done well at this and excellent for the creation of catchphrases. I dare not mention specifics because this thought is more of an impulse than a blanket statement against everyone and everything I have ever read. I also know that making this a blanket statement will raise the ire of some folks very near and dear to my heart.
I picked up a copy of the DSM-IV today from work. I did not due this because I find it fascinating but merely so I can grope my way through the dark anals of actualy psychological description. I have reports and treament plans that use DSM jargon and usually when I am forced to look up a term I am not faced with some fascinating new similie to use in my thesis but horror. I am one who believes that a great deal of philosophy (good and bad) is an interesting study in the uses, abuses, malappropriations, and misunderstanding of metaphors. It is a puzzle of language. We look to push language, create shortcuts through it or tie it up neatly but sometimes this denies the reality of what language attempts to describe. Enuresis is one I am confronted with a lot these days. It is not fun. I also think the philosophical fascination with psychology is similar to slowing down to look at wreck. The paramedics find little to be exctied about but we love it and we love the chill of the spine that comes with it. I think that is why psychology attempts to frame itself in terms of a science (though every psychologist I have ever spoken believes their is something scientific about it that it is decidely NOT a science). Attempting the scientific view point is an attempt at distance. And why some might view this distance as a cold thing I am forced to more and more believe that it is a defense mechanism against the misery that the human being can perpetrate against itself. But what the hell do I know. I am going back to my cooking and my beer.